Moderna galerija

MODERNA GALERIJA

Moderna galerija was founded in 1948 as a museum of modern art. The initiative for building a national museum and exhibition venue that would, unlike the National Gallery, be dedicated to modern art was given by art historian Izidor Cankar. The construction was made possible thanks to a substantial financial contribution from the heritage of industrialist Dragotin Hribar. The new museum building was designed in the 1930s by one of the most prominent Slovenian architects of the 20th century, Edvard Ravnikar.

Up until the collapse of the former Yugoslavia, Moderna galerija systematically focused on collecting works by Slovenian artists. Also its exhibition policy was directed primarily at presenting Slovenian art production, with the most prominent exception being the International Biennial of Graphic Arts, beginning back in 1955; in the mid-1980s, its organization was taken over by the International Center of Graphic Arts, which became an independent institution at that time.

With Slovenia?s independence in 1991, Moderna galerija became the principal national institution of modern and contemporary art and an increasingly active link between the local and the international, in particular Central and Eastern European, contexts. One of the results of this orientation is the international collection Arteast 2000+, begun in 2000.

During the past decade Moderna galerija has dedicated a great deal of its efforts to solving the problem of insufficient space, to restructuring its work, and to redefining its role of a museum in the present sociopolitical context. In 2011, it reorganized its activities into two large units, Moderna galerija (the museum of modern art) in the original building in Tomšičeva Street; and the Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova (MSUM/Muzej sodobne umetnosti Metelkova) in the former army barracks complex in Metelkova Street.

MODERNA GALERIJA?S TWO BUILDINGS
By the 1990s, Moderna galerija?s original building had become too cramped for the museum?s ever-growing collection and the increasingly varied and demanding programs in the fields of modern and contemporary art; moreover, it had long failed to meet modern museum standards. This led to a complete overhaul of the building. The renovation work, carried out by the architectural firm Bevk Perović arhitekti, was started in 2007 and was completed in the fall of 2009. The classified building retained all of its former characteristic features; the only major changes occurred in the basement, where there are, in addition to up-to-date storerooms and a photographic studio, two new spaces for visitors, an auditorium and a café.

Due to its shortage of space, Moderna galerija was allotted the use of another building by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia as early as 1995: one of the buildings in the former Yugoslav People?s Army barracks in Metelkova Street. Before the building was in any way renovated, the Arteast 2000+ collection was presented there in 2000, auguring the concept of the future museum of contemporary art. When the building was finally renovated in 2011, Moderna galerija was at last able to reorganize its work in two large units as planned: Moderna galerija (the museum of modern art) and MSUM (the Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova).

The building housing MSUM is part of a former army barracks complex that was initially erected for the Austro-Hungarian army and used by the Yugoslav People?s Army after the Second World War. In 1991, after the Yugoslav People?s Army left Slovenia, the state earmarked the southern part of the complex for use by museums, while the northern part was squatted by artists and activists who founded the Metelkova City Autonomous Cultural Center in 1993. The Ministry of Culture designed the south part as a museum quarter, renovating first the buildings of the Slovenian Ethnographic Museum, the outstation of the National Museum of Slovenia, and lastly, the building Moderna galerija had conceived as a space for contemporary art. The renovation of the barracks and the design of the museum quarter is the work of the architectural firm Groleger arhitekti.

MODERNA GALERIJA?S NEW UNIT:
MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART METELKOVA (MSUM)

The difference between Moderna galerija (the museum of modern art) and MSUM is based on the historical development of Moderna galerija, its collections, exhibition policies, and the cultural-political contexts on the one hand, and, on the other, on the need to reevaluate modernism and articulate contemporaneity as something that essentially differs from both modernism and postmodernism and describes a particular condition of art, its institutions, and social circumstances.

In socialist times, Moderna galerija did not quite fit the dominant, i.e. Western, paradigm of a museum of modern art, although it followed its example within the scope of its possibilities. It followed the canons of modernism in terms of architecture and the models of presentation of art, using them at the same time as a means for evading ideological pressure. Interestingly, it was the formalism of modernism with its apparent neutrality and lack of interest in current social problems that ultimately best suited the then authorities.

During the time of post-communist transition Moderna galerija found itself financially undernourished and understaffed. Not only unable to become one, it had never wanted to transform into a postmodern museum of sensations and intense experiences; by the beginning of the new millennium it had quite clearly developed its concept of a museum of contemporary art endorsing multiple narratives and the priorities of localities that only want to enter in dialogue with other spaces on an equal footing, bringing their own symbolic capital to the table.

MSUM, as one of the two units of Moderna galerija, is only apparently an antithesis of the museum of modern art, drawing attention to what had been already present in the 20th century without falling within the orthodox modernist explanation. For this reason, too, the museum of modern art is no longer quite the same as before; among other things, it now underscores this dialectical relationship between the modern and the contemporary.

Historical Overview