Frank Raes
Dear Mr. Klein (cose cosmiche in cp)
please excuse my delay in answering your mail.
I am writing you as the director of the Museum of Anthropocene Technology (see website below)
It is kind of flattering that somebody would like to be me. It would even be more interesting, I believe, if we could actually swap our lives for a day. Unfortunately this week is difficult, unless you want to know what it is to be a father of 3 adult daughters…
But from your writing I gather that we do not necessarily have to do a physical swap. I can also give you an idea (and maybe you can give one to me).
I also gather that this poject is avout curateship, right?, and that you believe that everything can be curated. My question is: curated what for?
At the Museum we collect
“… things of our times, try out different exhibits, until “things fall in place”, until hyperobjects become fully visible, create wonder and doubt and show that things are more complex than what they are taught to be. Use all of this to recompose knowledge. Use curatorship to cure.”
So at the Museum, we continuously think about what is curating, and why we curate. Can I suggest that you think about this, for a day?
Of course, if you want to come and visit the Museum during your stay in Milano, you (and Silvia and Helga) are very welcome. Let me know in advance. I am NOT available Tuesday and Thursday.
Hoping that all this keeps your interest.
Best regards and looking forward to be in touch,
Frank
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Dear Frank,
it was a pleasure to meet you at the opening last Sunday.
I am writing to you sitting in a train driving through the magnificent Alps thinking about your quote in the mail, to make hyperobjects visible. That is is so hard for us to understand how such an enormous piece of rock could have been shaped throughout time, and will change again in the future. How the snow-capped mountain tips might not be there anymore in the future and how our actions directly contribute to that or more precisely how the time that was before us has come to this point where we are now left with the results trying to compensate previous actions while we have to face and adopt to the situation we are in.
Generally I really liked what you wrote in your mail about creating wonder and doubt and show that things are more complex than what they are taught to be. I can very much relate to this in my work – that often has a quite minimal appearance or comes as a small (sometimes humorous) gesture but opens up to complex systems that lie beyond. Or at least that is what I am aiming at.
I had left your task for the last day of my week since there was this presentation in the form of a small exhibition planned that needed curation of all the individual days into one final big set-up and I thought this was fitting. I choose a layout that made me think of walking into a big sketchbook. For me this week opened up a lot of new paths to follow, things to try out and make more precise later on.
If there was more time this week I would have loved to come visit you at the museum and realise some intervention with the display having the idea of curating in the back of my mind. But maybe in the future we can work something out.
For now to return an idea, I am curious what happens if there is little to show, if no objects are involved, how do you curate something if the selection process happens mostly in the mind of the viewer.
Many thanks again for being part of this project
All my best
Stefan