CHANCE
The Moderna Museet collection
contains
so many works that most of them are in storage.
The
chance
encounters that arise when works are put away,
close to each other
with no
particular plan
, sometimes
reveals new aspects of
images
that
we thought we knew well.
At first glance, this screen is a muddle of artistic styles,
ideas
and subjects.
And yet, all the works could be described as portraits – personal or idealised pictures of people; portraits of other artists, snapshots, and a portrait of
mountain the artist
Etel
Adnan saw every morning when she woke up.
Together, they are also perhaps a portrait of the multitude of impressions, lives, voices
and
narratives
that make up
the Moderna Museet collection.
In the museum galleries, works are often shown side by side with other works from the same period or context where their underlying ideas meet.
When not on display, they are stored close together on screens in a
storage
With its
randomly mixed
screens, the Study Gallery is sort of in between a warehouse and an open space where art is presented to the public.
This
particular screen
shows a few disparate works in the way they are stored, where
what is shown next to what is
pure coincidence
Often, this can give rise to fortunate encounters between works of art from widely different periods and styles, and the unexpected links
this
generate
can
show us
something new, when we read the works across time and space.