STATENS MUSEUM FOR KUNST: Et museum for kunsthistorien og samtidskunsten

Resumé

Statens Museum for Kunst is now one of the

few art museums in Europe where collections

of art from the 14th century to the present

day are kept together. However, the need for

an expansion of the exhibition area became

increasingly urgent, and a wing was added

to the museum in 1996. The article’s title

indicates, therefore, the framework for the

wide field of art covered by the museum. It is

relevant to take a closer look at the historical

basis for this combination within visual

art. Two important players come to mind:

Diderot, French art critic and philosopher

of the Enlightenment, and in Denmark the

art historian Julius Lange. Diderot advanced

the idea that contemporary art should be part

of the “modern” public museum. If any one

person deserves the credited for legitimizing

contemporary art as an important category

in itself, it is Denis Diderot, for he made

the claim the con-temporary art be taken as

seriously as was the art of the past. Lange

played a leading part in Danish artistic life.

His aim to make explicit the criteria for

obtaining optimum presentation of the art

collections at Statens Museum for Kunst

resulted in heated discussions. They have

had a decisive influence in Denmark on the

ongoing discussions of the importance of contemporary

art seen in relation to museums

and art history, and on the presentation of art

collections and, not least, on what they should

represent. In the end of the 20th century the

concept of representation has had a dramatic

revival. For an insightful con-tribution to this

movement, the article points to the American

art historian Donald Preziosi’s discussion of

the relation between the “modern” public

museum and the con-cept of representation.