Kunstsammlung NRW

95 Voices for Better Exhibitions: a Travel Report

The International Annual Conference for Exhibition Managers in Vienna, 2014

Here is a woman who embodies the convergence of various strands: the exhibition manager Stefanie Jansen and her team keep track of countless details and overcome hurdles and challenges so that on opening day of every exhibition at the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, the works of art are displayed in their proper places, and all other gallery preparations – from appropriate lighting to wall texts – have been optimally coordinated.

Once every year, exhibition managers from all over the world meet for their annual conference in order to exchange ideas about their highly specialized museum occupation in lectures, discussions, and interviews.

Stefanie Jansen reports for #32 on this year's conference, where she met colleagues traveling from numerous different lands – from Australia to Qatar.


Exhibition Management is Really Something Else

Exhibition management is really something else. You are expected to ensure that museum colleagues, despite their frequent reluctance, hold artists to deadlines and budgetary constraints – which can be arduous at times: I'd be curious to know whether institutions in other countries – including world-famous museums like the Prado, the Rijksmuseum, and MoMA – have similar structures and comparable problems.

In response to an invitation from the International Exhibition Organization (IEO) (founded in 1999), together with 95 colleagues from 20 different countries, I make the trip from Düsseldorf to Vienna. Exiting from the rapid City Airport Train/subway connection at Karlsplatz, you immediately become aware of the numerous Jugendstil and Wilhelminian buildings that so strongly shape Vienna architecturally, and which give it such a seamless appearance.


Arrival at the Belvedere

On the evening of our arrival, we are invited to a welcoming cocktail party at the Belvedere, where the first story – featuring Viennese heroes like Klimt, Schiele, and Kokoschka – is opened exclusively for us. Given its popularity, Klimt’s Kiss of 1908/09 leads an airless existence, immured behind a layer of protective glass like the Mona Lisa in the Louvre. Most of all, I enjoy the sunsets over Vienna, which can be seen to great advantage from the Belvedere, and a reunion with Franz Xaver Messerschmidt’s expressive Heads, exhibited facing one another in a circular arrangement.  

We spend most of the following two days cloistered in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, which is our host. What a staircase! A brief experience of déjà vu as I browse postcards in the shop, with all of the long familiar motifs from paintings, objets d’art, and jewelry – but there is barely any time for the originals. And to think: this is where it all began!

photo: Stefanie Jansen / Kunstsammlung

How does one Become an Exhibition Manager?

And now it's time for me to answer my own question: as you might imagine, the job profile of an exhibition manager is extremely heterogeneous in character. While our American colleagues have long operated with the classical corporate structure, this phenomenon seems far more recent in the European context. The list of attendees features a confusing mixture of job designations, ranging from registrar to curator to the various management titles (project manager, head of exhibitions, exhibition manager, director of exhibitions, program manager, and so forth).


From Insurance Premiums to Photo Permissions

The diverse subjects of the lectures reflect this situation: when a museum accepts the loan of a work of art, insurance premiums and agreements concerning exemptions from legal seizure are dealt with by country-specific laws and conventions, and are generally the purview of the registrar. There are questions concerning permissions to take photographs in museums, concerning related to experiences with using apps (a topic generally assigned to departments of education and communication), as well as themes such as risk management, which is a concern of museum heads and directors of collections as well as departments of conservation and restoration, and an issue that – is illustrated with reference to the Guggenheim Bilbao – necessarily arises with each exhibition. I am interested in particular in the lectures on operational procedures during renovations or conversions, on cooperative agreements, and on intriguing case studies from museums around the world, from Dallas or Paris on the topic of working with “living artists,” for example.

Between sessions, we have an opportunity to get better acquainted with colleagues, and to assign faces to otherwise anonymous e-mail partners. This personal dimension can't help but facilitate future collaborations and decision-making processes, and is the real benefit of the meeting.

It is reassuring to learn that other institutions too alternate between positive proposals and setbacks or reversals during exhibition preparations, and that (as though we didn't know this already) no truly flawless organization exists.


Mantras for Exhibition Managers

During lectures, I assemble the following mantras:

An artist is a human being!

Do not rely on volunteer labor!

Free food for your staff!

photo: Stefanie Jansen / Kunstsammlung

In Closing, a Few Impressions of Vienna

In evidence in Austria too is the campaign for the European elections (a poster for the Austrian Greens betrays the tongue-in-cheek national humor with the poster featuring a happy piglet with the promise of “A Life before the [Wiener]Schnitzel.” The papers are full of the Austrian contribution to the Eurovision Song Contest, and when it comes to museum marketing, there are quite ostentatious attempts. The art historian in me feels slightly uneasy when, on the steps of the Albertina, Dürer’s Hare, the jewel of the collection, hops forward from a gigantic billboard. Upon ordering mineral water the Viennese maître d' asks whether I want the fizzy or the non-fizzy version – you have to wonders whether this decision amounts to something more than a choice of whether one wants bubbles in one's water not…?

Summing up my trip on Friday evening:

It definitely fizzed!

Stefanie Jansen has headed the Department of Exhibition Management for the K20 and K21 venues of the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen since 2010.

This art historian – who was active earlier as a curatorial assistant – took part in the conference of the IEO for the first time. After three days, she felt confirmed that she was indeed “doing everything right.” She is even fully convinced now of the necessity for holding regular project meetings at which all budgets, tasks, and timelines are coordinated with one another in the run up to exhibition preparations. Among other things, she has been able to share her practical knowledge in the form of advanced training for curators from China.