Rainer Fuchs
Rainer Fuchs, Vienna, 26 January 2024
“You also sometimes take walks through your own history.”
Longtime MUMOK head curator Rainer Fuchs made himself available for this conversation just a few weeks prior to his retirement in the winter of 2024. The museum building, currently undergoing renovation, served as the starting point from which to speak about his institution’s history and about what a museum of modern art can and must do. About how the general view of collecting, conservation, and mediation has changed in recent decades. About the balancing acts that emerge between curators’ individual passions and institutional obligations. Just what does it mean to continually revise notions of concepts such as avant-garde and modern in “retrograde times,” in times where contemplating experimental forces tends to be crowded out in favor of touristic attractiveness? Over 33 years of experience at the MUMOK have sharpened Rainer Fuchs’ skepticism toward neoliberal visions.
“You also sometimes take walks through your own history.”
Longtime MUMOK head curator Rainer Fuchs made himself available for this conversation just a few weeks prior to his retirement in the winter of 2024. The museum building, currently undergoing renovation, served as the starting point from which to speak about his institution’s history and about what a museum of modern art can and must do. About how the general view of collecting, conservation, and mediation has changed in recent decades. About the balancing acts that emerge between curators’ individual passions and institutional obligations. Just what does it mean to continually revise notions of concepts such as avant-garde and modern in “retrograde times,” in times where contemplating experimental forces tends to be crowded out in favor of touristic attractiveness? Over 33 years of experience at the MUMOK have sharpened Rainer Fuchs’ skepticism toward neoliberal visions.