A Model

What is the role of museums today? This major three-part exhibition invites international artists to take over Mudam Luxembourg’s galleries and reimagine new models for the museum.

The first exhibition of Mudam’s 2024 programme, A Model reflects on the role of museums today and considers the urgency to rethink the institution as an active space that presents diverse voices and visions, that is sensitive and receptive to contemporary debates beyond its traditional status as a place of display. 

For her first major exhibition since becoming Director of Mudam Luxembourg—Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean in 2022, Bettina Steinbrügge has commissioned a dozen artists to create new works in relation to the Mudam Collection and to reimagine museums as active and performative environments. A Model is structured around three distinct moments, starting with A Model: Prelude—Rayyane Tabet. Trilogy (until May 12, 2024), followed by A Model, in which works by international artists unfold throughout the museum (from February 9 to September 8, 2024), and concluding with A Model: Epilogue—Jason Dodge. Tomorrow, I walked to a dark black star (April 24 to September 8, 2024).

This drive to rethink and reinvent is nothing new in the development of the modern and contemporary art museum. Bettina Steinbrügge was inspired by the project of the artist and activist Palle Nielsen, entitled The Model—A Model for a Qualitative Society, presented in 1968 at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, then led by Pontus Hultén, who contributed considerably to redefining the museum in his time. Nielsen’s project took the shape of an adventure playground inside the museum, freely accessible to all children.

A Model echoes this regenerating and playful spirit—and the title—of this remarkable project in its desire to renew the museum’s commitment to contemporary art. By using the Mudam Collection as the point of departure for a temporary exhibition, A Model marks the beginning of new ways of thinking about how art is displayed. A Model foregrounds the role played by artists in shaping collective awareness and their influence on shaping contemporary art and its museums. A Model is also about the potential of art to have critical impact on the world. Although an artist’s vision is subjective and personal, art is a vital form of communication. The idea of the art museum as a static archive—a conception inherited from Enlightenment—is upended in today’s cultural context, in which durational, event-based and experimental artworks, exhibitions and experiences are part of the institutional language.

In the third part of A Model, the artist Jason Dodge will conceive an epilogue. Dodge’s Tomorrow, I walked to a dark black star is a solo presentation throughout the museum of found objects from everyday life in Luxembourg. Dodge collects objects on the streets of the cities in which he works, exploring the poetic in everyday life and challenging our value systems by placing unobvious material in a museum context. It is a deeply human approach that expresses a love for art, but also for life in general, for all the little things that seem insignificant but make up our belief system. 

An exhibition in three parts
A Model: Prelude—Rayyane Tabet. Trilogy, December 1, 2023 to May 12, 2024
A Model: February 9 to September 8, 2024
A Model: Epilogue—Jason Dodge, April 24 to September 8, 2024

Artists: Alvar Aalto, Sophia Al-Maria, James Richmond Barthé, Nina Beier and Bob Kil, Tomaso Binga, Anna Boghiguian, Andrea Bowers, Matilde Cerruti Quara, Ali Cherri, Tony Cokes, Nayla Dabaji, Jason Dodge, Claire Fontaine, Matthew Angelo Harrison, General Idea, María Jerez and Edurne Rubio, Isaac Julien, Marysia Lewandowska, Hanne Lippard, Renzo Martens, Melvin Moti, Oscar Murillo, Palle Nielsen, Khandakar Ohida, Daniela Ortiz, Walid Raad, Finnegan Shannon, Krista Belle Stewart, SUPERFLEX, Rayyane Tabet, Su-Mei Tse, Nora Turato, Dardan Zhegrova, among others.

Curators: Bettina Steinbrügge, with Clément Minighetti, Sarah Beaumont and Joel Valabrega
Research team: Tess Mazuet, António Mendes, Carlotta Pierleoni, Jade Saber

With the support of Banque Degroof Petercam Luxembourg.
Thanks to The Danish Arts Foundation and Carlsberg Foundation.