Moving in and out of historyThe fate and the future of the Royal Cast

Collection, CopenhagenBy Henrik HolmPh.d., Curator

Bio-Power / Bio-Politics:

The application and impact of political power on all aspects of human life

(Michel Foucault)

”West Indian Warehouse”

What casts do: they perform “stylized repetition of acts” / “stylization of the body” = creates the idea of

gender and identity (Judith Butler)

Bio-Politics

”We worship man, our invention…”

Evolution of art, spirit, freedom, and mankind

Once a happy performance…

Plaster cast of the ”Apollon Belvedere”

and ”The Parnassus” by Anton Raphael Mengs, 1761

Nazism and antiquity

Stills from Leni Riefenstahls movie ”Olympia” and from her book ”Beauty in Olympic Battles”

”Towards a Newer Laocoon”

Barnett Newman:

Onement 1, 1948

…. turning into an ”unhappy” one

Cecil B. DeMille directing a scene form ”Cleopatra” (1934)

Van Gogh drawing ca. 1880

1966: Moving out of History

Returning in post-modernist times

The Renaissance gallery now, and a prospect of the future housing

Museums in crisis

• Irrelevant• Authoritative• Uncomfortable • No change• No creativity• No marks left• Less Money• Less Impact• Less Power

A solution: participatory strategies

”gipSMK”on Facebook and YouTube

(”gips” is plaster in Danish, ”SMK” is the abbreviation of Statens Museum for Kunst (National Gallery))

Moving in and out of historyThe fate and the future of the Royal Cast

Collection, CopenhagenBy Henrik HolmPh.d., Curator

”West Indian Warehouse”