Benjamin Weil - On the new CAM
ISABEL LUCAS
Words
PEDRO FERREIRA
Portraits
ERIETA ATTALI
Photography
Born in Paris in 1958, Benjamin Weil always had broad horizons. He moved to New York in 1985 to study art history, before furthering his knowledge at institutions like the Peggy Guggenheim in Venice and the Whitney. As an art critic, he published articles in various specialised magazines. He’s also worked in London at the ICA, at SFMOMA in San Francisco, before returning to New York and Venice, plus a spell at Spain’s Fundación Botín. Possessing a vast CV that encompasses almost every form of contemporary art, Weil arrived in Lisbon in 2021 to become director of the Gulbenkian Foundation's Centro de Arte Moderna (CAM). With the centre re-opening in September, he’s committed to making the new space an effective interface between artists and the public, creating a haven of intimacy that attracts new audiences. Keen to develop his knowledge of Portuguese, Weil wants to make CAM his home, as well as the home of every artist and visitor who passes through. The centre’s doors will reopen with an exhibition by Leonor Antunes.
How have you adapted to the Gulbenkian? More precisely, to the CAM (Modern Art Centre)?
For me, the fact that they decided to call it the Modern Art Centre rather than a museum is interesting.
Why?
Priority is given to being an art centre. They could have called it the Museum of Modern Art, or the Museum of Contemporary Art or the Centre for Contemporary Art, but they decided to call it Centro de Arte Moderna (CAM). This brings things that aren’t necessarily compatible, but are part of the institution’s DNA, which aims to function as a Kunsthalle. This means operating as a centre for exhibitions, a place to engage with contemporary culture, while having its own collection. That’s a great challenge in itself; very inspiring. It means being a part of all that, while being involved with the future without ignoring the past. Few institutions have this duality. It’s slightly schizophrenic but interesting.
CAM was inaugurated in 1983, 40 years ago...
Yes. It was supposed to function as a repository for the Gulbenkian Foundation’s modern art collection, which had a rather strange personality, due to the fact that it was constructed not as a collection. It became one because of the accumulated work that took place. On the other hand, it was dedicated to showing the most advanced thinking in contemporary art. CAM’s DNA is part of it. I want to work with that DNA, which I find fascinating.
How?
I’m not alone in this. I’m working with a great team and looking to build on the legacy we have.
Any particular inspiration?
The foundation’s total dedication to supporting artists, which is why there’s a collection. Since 1984, the foundation has been supporting the most emerging and valuable contemporary culture. On one hand we have the collection, on the other ACART (Animation, Artistic Creation and Art Education Department). These are two components upon which we can construct something that may even combine the two. It’s very curious to think that there will be at least five different ways for people to approach the collection when we’re open to the public. There’s a room dedicated to exhibiting the collection, which is curated according to type; a selection of works based on a theme. In this case, the theme is Tide Line, which explores the idea of counter current in the sea. It’s based on a piece by Hamish Fulton, which is part of the collection, and aims to emphasise the strangeness of the times we currently live in. Presenting the collection in 2024, which is the year Portugal commemorates 50 years of democracy, is quite the achievement. That said, we don’t necessarily want to celebrate the revolution in a very literal way, as many others would do a better job. It’s more about using this moment to reflect upon what’s happening to us now, what kind of world we live in, and how art allows us to consider the world’s complexities. The three curators responsible for the exhibition selected a wide variety of artworks. They were picked not to show the iconic pieces of the collection that everyone imagines or must-see works by artists like Almada Negreiros or Amadeo, but rather the idea of doing an exhibition based on a theme, an idea, which is tide lines, which constitutes a fascinating metaphor. We’re living in extraordinarily complex times and all rather worried. How does art deal with this? How can an exhibition furnish people with critical thinking skills or allow them to start reflecting on reality in a different way?
Is that art’s essential function?
It’s one function of art. At the same time, there will be a space called visitable reserves, which is something we’re beginning to see more of throughout the world. In its more traditional format, the exhibition adheres to an authoritarian model for presenting art. What if we say many works won’t be seen because they’re in storage? How do you make people aware that the museum isn’t just a gallery? There’ll be a space available and we will select works from the collection, which won’t be in the exhibition and will not be exhibited according to a theme. This will involve selections made by the in-house curators. Or we might invite another curator, an academic, or a philosopher, to get another perspective. The idea is to give people access to the reserves in an informal way. Young people shy away from museums nowadays.
How can you attract them to the centre?
Maybe by not doing things in the same super-authoritarian, formal way; perhaps they want something more informal. We’ll see. We’re willing to give it a go. The artworks aren’t on a pedestal, the lighting isn’t perfect... There’s something more within reach. And there’ll be another space for presenting works from the collection on paper, in the same spirit. It’s not an exhibition; it’s a shop window; a shop window that changes. Tide Line will be on show for two years, but these two spaces will change. Some basic things may stay, but the rest will change. We’ll decide how often. Things won’t be static, to the point that every time someone returns to CAM, they’ll see something different. There’s another aspect. The container we’ve got in the garden is part of the motion project we started in the summer of 2021. We didn’t have the building, so we took that opportunity to reach out to different communities, take things to street level and see how people reacted.
Gabriela Albergaria, in Benfica...
Yes, and before that there was a piece by Rui Toscano and another by Carlos Bunga. We’ve tried various approaches to reach people. We also did a project in Chelas [a Lisbon neighbourhood] with the community, which was remarkably interesting. There will also be a video room where visitors can see the permanent video collection, with a touch screen to select the different items. It’s a new way of approaching the collection. And we’re thinking about how to occupy other spaces. There is a main space in the nave which artists are invited to. They’re given carte blanche to create a project that includes works from the collection.
Another perspective on the collection.
The idea is that the collection is everywhere, but not totemically. There are always different perspectives. There’s eclecticism, but it’s always the collection. The collection is the root, which is odd because it was constructed by acquiring works by different directors. The pieces Jorge Molder bought have nothing to do with what Isabel Carlos bought. And the same could be said about what Penelope Curtis bought. Since I arrived, we’ve tried to rationalise the way we look at things. For example, with the Jorge Queiroz and Arshile Gorky exhibition, we bought works by Queiroz to include in our collection. We held a Fernão Cruz exhibition and bought some of his works. The same happened with the Hugo Canoilas exhibition. This has dictated my decision about what to buy. Together with the curators, we decide what makes sense. It’s another landmark. The collection continues being built.
It’s not an academic collection.
No, it’s not. The collection is the product of a process. Before I came here, I worked at the Fundación Botín, where it’s the same story. That process is the essence of the collection.
It creates a form of intimacy.
Yes. The relationship that the artist has with the foundation is the basis of its acquisitions. The foundation supports the artist by buying their works, or by giving them a scholarship to study abroad. The quintessence of this relationship is what happened with Paula Rego, who went to the UK on a Gulbenkian grant, which then bought her work. She is just one example of dozens of artists that the foundation has supported. We have works by Paula Rego because she’s an essential artist, but also because we had a relationship with her throughout her life. That’s great. It’s like a family. It’s particularly important to maintain that spirit. We don’t do business in the same way we did in 1956. The world has changed. An important part of what we need to do is catalysing artists. They inspire us; they produce the work we want to share with an audience. To do so, we need to be aware of what our publics are and their needs. The publics are different. And that’s the second part of what CAM is going to be: being driven by the needs of the public, while focussing on the artists, because we can’t create publics if artists don’t get support. We’re an interface between artists and people.
Behaviours, technology, ideas about works of art, and the world are changing.
Nowadays, we tend to be glued to our screens. But what if we suddenly enter somewhere not prompted by our screen, but immersed in something that is nothing more than space? We have a consultation group made up of young people we’ve been working with over recent months. They’ve been looking at everything we do and how we do it, commenting on how we can adjust, adapt, think and rethink so that they feel part of the project. This way they feel this is their home, not just ours. It belongs to the visitors as much as it does to the artists. It doesn’t belong to us. We’re merely managing it.
Formal?
Exactly. It has to be the complete opposite. We open the building and it belongs to artists and visitors.
Because many people feel excluded from these kinds of places.
So, it’s a major challenge. We need to consult a lot of people. We’re still thinking about ways of doing it. I always say that the sign of a good exhibition is leaving the museum, or the art centre, feeling that your worldview has changed.
In other words, it’s not a particular way of looking at art. Can you give any examples?
So many! When I was at Fundación Botín, we did a project with Martin Creed, which involved a performance in an empty space with paintings that was repeated every 20 minutes. When I left, time wasn’t the same. My worldview was different, as if the trees and the colour of the sky had changed. Suddenly, there was the notion of being attentive. It’s like when you’re walking down the street, somewhere familiar, and you suddenly look at a door and “wow, I’ve never seen that door before!” In a trice, you see things you wouldn’t otherwise see. Art works in the same way. It can be a very formal, minimal sculpture, like something by Carl Andre, the American minimalist who died recently, that kind of long metal sword. In other words, the sculpture wasn’t sacred, it was just there, but it altered the perception of space. Think of the wonderful American painter, Julie Mehretu, who makes artworks you can actually enter. It’s as if there’s no end to the painting’s depth. And how many of Paula Rego’s pictures could we look at for hours? Recently, I was reading about an exhibition by Robert Ryman, another minimalist American artist. All his life, he made white canvases that were all different in appearance. Suddenly our relationship with white canvases changes completely. And that’s what we want to share with as many people as possible. We want to attract top artists and challenge them to do something special, having a much more intimate relationship with them. We can say to an artist: this is your space, do what you want with it.
Like with Leonor Antunes.
Yes. She will inaugurate the main gallery when we re-open in September. She’s fascinating. She’s done a lot of research into the history of the building, as well as researching the collection and supporting work by women artists. With her, it’s not just her work, it’s also how she sees the world. She’s sharing work with us, but she’s also collaborating with other artists. The idea was hers.
Very briefly, what would you like the new CAM to be?
We don’t want to be an authority, in the sense of an authoritarian museum. We want to offer things. We want to make people feel that this is theirs. Knowledge is also about sharing knowledge. We’re thinking beyond exhibitions. We’re going to listening to artists again, listening to the public and constructing a good interface so they can reach one another.
