Government contribution to The Second Museum of Our Wishes

6 September 2007

The government is supporting Moderna Museet’s efforts to redress the gender balance in its collection and has allocated SEK 5 million to Moderna Museet for purchases of works by women artists.

“We want to encourage public bodies and institutions to develop their operations in this direction on their own initiative. The venture is completely in line with the Ministry of Culture’s gender equality efforts in general,” says Minister of Culture Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth. Since Lars Nittve’s article on the Second Museum of our Wishes was published in Dagens Nyheter’s debate page in spring 2006 – outlining an initiative to improve the gender balance in the older part of Moderna Museet’s collection – several private donations have been made to the museum. SEK 25 million have been raised so far from Barbro and Bernhard Osher, Pontus, Eva and Åke Bonnier, Per and Lena Josefsson and Anna-Stina Malmborg. Several works of art have also been donated.

Out of the artists on the original “Wish List”, Moderna Museet has now acquired works by Dorothea Tanning, Siri Derkert, Anna Kagan, Tora Vega Holmström and Carolee Schnemann. The most recent acquisition is an early wood sculpture by Louise Bourgeois: Pillar from 1949.

Lars Nittve, director of Moderna Museet:
“We are overjoyed by the government’s contribution, which sanctions our objective and improves our chances of making further acquisitions. The fact that the public sector now joins up with private initiatives signals a general consensus on the issue. International reactions after our appeal were “Typically Swedish!” But Tate Modern recently initiated a similar project, which goes to show that we have impacted on the world. With the purchase of Tanning’s Insomnias the shift of canon that this initiative entails has started in earnest. Our recent purchase of a key work by Louise Bourgeois, an art icon, is an invaluable addition.”