On Moderna Museet 1958–2008 | Moderna Museet i Stockholm

With rich visual material, exhibition history, and a comprehensive bibliography, “The History Book. On Moderna Museet 1958–2008” is a valuable resource for anyone interested in the history of Moderna Museet. Purchase the book in the Moderna Museet Shop or read the digital version here.

Published in 2008, “The History Book. On Moderna Museet 1958–2008” offers an in-depth look at the history of Moderna Museet, from the development of its collections to the policy decisions that have shaped the museum. The book features 12 texts on a range of subjects central to the museum’s activities.

The authors of The History Book:

Eva Eriksson, Annika Gunnarsson, Martin Gustavsson, Maria Görts, Anette Göthlund, Hans Hayden, Marianne Hultman, Karin Malmquist, Magnus af Petersens, Martin Sundberg, Anna Tellgren, Jeff Werner. The artists Marysia Lewandowska and Neil Cummings were invited to contribute an artistic intervention to the book.

READ THE HISTORY BOOK ONLINE

The digital version of “The History Book. About Moderna Museet 1958–2008” contains fourteen parts. The first part contains the table of contents, foreword and introduction, followed by all the chapters of the book, and the final part includes chronology, publications, personal index, subject index and author presentations, as well as the original colophon from 2008.

The digital version does not include the artistic intervention by Marysia Lewandowska and Neil Cummings in the beginning of each chapter, nor the chapter with selected works from the collection (pp. 201–232) and the history in pictures (pp. 373–448). The first image in each chapter has been removed, as well as a number of images and illustrations where copyrights are missing. For these parts, reference is made to the printed book from 2008.

Want the printed version? Get “The History Book” in the Moderna Museet Shop!

The History Book. On Moderna Museet 1958–2008

Editors: Anna Tellgren and Martin Sundberg, Moderna Museet
Design: BrittonBritton

Chapter 1. Foreword and introduction (pdf)

Chapter 2. Routine and Selection: The Genesis of the Moderna Museet Collection, Maria Görts (pdf)

Chapter 3. Money, Politics and the Public: Moderna Museet and the Government, Martin Gustafsson (pdf)

Chapter 4. Transformation and Transit: Moderna Museet and its Buildings, Eva Eriksson (pdf)

Chapter 5. Art on Stage: Happenings and Moving Images at Moderna Museet, Magnus af Petersens och Martin Sundberg (pdf)

Chapter 6. Photography and Art: On the Moderna Museet Collection of Photography from a Historic Perspective on the Institution, Anna Tellgren (pdf)

Chapter 7. Changing Sides: Modern and Contemporary Prints and Drawings at Moderna Museet, Annika Gunnarsson (pdf)

Chapter 8. Double Bind: Moderna Museet as an Arena for Interpreting the Past and the Present, Hans Hayden (pdf)

Chapter 9. Our Man in New York: An Interview with Billy Klüver on his Collaboration with Moderna Museet, Marianne Hultman (pdf)

Chapter 10. Activities in the Workshop and Zon: Art Education for Children at Moderna Museet, Anette Göthlund (pdf)

Chapter 11. La Cour des miracles: On Visitors, Learning and Art at Moderna Museet, Karin Malmquist (pdf)

Chapter 12. Between Experiment and Everyday Life: The Exhibition Catalogues of Moderna Museet, Martin Sundberg (pdf)

Chapter 13. Reflections from Afar: Moderna Museet in the Foreign Press, Jeff Werner (pdf)

Chapter 14. Chronology and bibliography (pdf)

Co-produced by Moderna Museet and Steidl Verlag.

The History Book Research Project

In October 2008, “The History Book. On Moderna Museet 1958–2008” was published as part of a major research project. The book explores the museum’s history from multiple perspectives, structured into three overarching themes: the history of the collection, museum policies, and the museum’s various areas of activity.

The History of the Collection

The first category includes Annika Gunnarsson’s account of how the Nationalmuseum’s print collection was transferred to Moderna Museet in 1998. The focus is on problems relating to collection policies, decisions and discussions preceding the transfer, and the theoretical distinction between modern and contemporary art. Anna Tellgren also touches on these issues in her essay on how Fotografiska Museet became a department within Moderna Museet. Looking at the debate on the position of photography, Tellgren discusses how the contents and style of this medium have changed in recent decades. While Gunnarsson and Tellgren focus on recent history, Marianne Hultman looks at Moderna Museet’s early activities in the legendary 1960s. Hultman has studied Pontus Hultén’s relationship to the New York resident Billy Klüver. Through interviews and correspondence, she reveals how Klüver helped Hultén build his American network in connection with a few of the museum’s most famous exhibitions.

Museum Policy Perspectives

On a more general level, Maria Görts and Martin Gustavsson examine how the collection emerged over a longer period of time, and how the museum collection provides a foundation for a political game. Görts discusses how Moderna Museet was engendered by the Nationalmuseum, and demonstrates how the collection has been influenced by donations, purchases, networks, chance and goal-oriented decisions. Gustavsson, instead, studies the museum’s activities from a financial perspective. In Gustavsson’s essay, the government’s spending authorisation serves as a starting point for a discussion on how the museum’s pragmatic situation has corresponded to the political and economic framework at different times.

Movement in Art, Moderna Museet, 1961 Photo: Moderna Museet © Jean Tinguely Bildupphovsrätt 2025

Exhibitions and Programme Activities

The museum’s activities are based on its exhibitions. Magnus af Petersens and Martin Sundberg write about the very aspect of the collection where the exhibition format has mostly been ephemeral: events for film and video art, performances and performance art. Hans Hayden’s essay deals with a few pivotal exhibitions – “Movement in Art” (1961), “Inner and Outer Space” (1965), “Implosion. A Postmodern Perspective” (1987) and “Wounds. Between Democracy and Redemption” (1998) – to examine how they have influenced and changed the perspective on art and recent art history.

Martin Sundberg has focused on another aspect of the exhibition activities: the catalogues. Aesthetic, financial and art policy perspectives on Moderna Museet’s exhibition catalogues are discussed in an international and historical context. Jeff Werner’s essay focused on the international perspective, and on how Moderna Museet has been received abroad. From the outside, Moderna Museet’s activities have been interpreted in different ways in different countries, and international attention has fluctuated over the years.

Pedagogy Through the Ages

Anette Göthlund and Karin Malmquist highlight the museum’s history in the field of education. Göthlund’s essay compares the museum’s learning methods to society’s approach to children and young adults. Tendencies and trends vary over time, and Göthlund juxtaposes Carlo Derkert’s famous pedagogy with contemporary values. Karin Malmquist’s essay describes the museum’s educational activities decade by decade, with regard to activities aimed at an adult public.

Black and white photo of child painting outdoors. — Photo from the exhibition "The Model", 1968 © Photo: Moderna Museet

A Glance Towards the Future

Neil Cummings and Marysia Lewandowska contributed an artistic intervention to “The History Book”. Based on Ayan Lundquist, fictive director of the museum in year 2058, they confabulate a history of the future of Moderna Museet. With a fictive foreword, a detailed chronology up to 2058, an interview with the future director and short presentations of each essay, all written from the future, they create a historic perspective on the newly-written essays about the museum. Cummings and Lewandowska’s project is distinguished by pale-blue pages in the History Book and is interfoliated throughout the publication.

A filmed interview with the would-be future director reveals an image of the museum’s fictional future. This film, “Museum Futures”, was shown at the symposium “The Past, the Present, the Future: The history of the modern art museum” held on the occasion of Moderna Museet’s 50th Anniversary and the launch of “The History Book” in autumn 2008.

The Past, the Present, the Future: The history of the modern art museum

Stockholm 17–18 October 2008

The symposium “The Past, the Present, the Future: The history of the modern art museum” sprang from Moderna Museet’s “The History Book” research project. While “The History Book” was devoted to the Museum’s history, the symposium sought to extend the discussion to the challenges and possibilities facing a modern museum in the early 21st century.

Several of the talks were edited and published in a theme issue of Konsthistorisk tidskrift/Journal of Art History, Vol 78, Häfte 2, 2009.

Day 1: Moderna Museet from a Swedish perspective

The first day of the symposium, the museum was discussed from a Swedish perspective, and several of the speakers had personal connections to various phases in the history of Moderna Museet.

Hans Hayden, professor of art history at Stockholm University, spoke about the modern museum as a forum for research. Monica Nieckels, curator for films and events at the museum between 1972 and 1996, shared her personal recollections. The art critic Beate Sydhoff spoke on how the museum was received by the press in 1966–1979. Margaretha Rossholm Lagerlöf, professor emeritus at the department of art history at Stockholm University, also gave a personal version of her encounter with American art at the museum in the 1960s.

”Museum Futures”

The first day of the symposium concluded with a screening of a film by Marysia Lewandowska and Neil Cummings, “Museum Futures”, which was produced for “The History Book”. The film consists of an interview with the fictive director of Moderna Museet in 2058, Ayan Lindqvist, and is a critical yet visionary fantasy about Moderna Museet’s activities 50 years from now

Day 2: Moderna Museet from an international perspective

On the second day, the outlook was widened when several international guests presented their perspectives on the modern art museum.

Mary Anne Staniszewski, author of the already classic study, “The Power of Display. A History of Exhibition Installations at the Museum of Modern Art” (1998), related a few of Moderna Museet’s more political exhibitions in the 1970s to concerns in sectors of the art scene today.

The Canadian art historian Patrik Andersson lectured on Pontus Hultén’s activities at Moderna Museet, a subject he also deals with in his doctoral thesis “Euro-Pop. The Mechanical Bride Stripped Bare in Stockholm” (2001). In Maria Hirvi-Ijäs’ lecture, the picture was further broadened by her discussion on the exhibition medium from a theoretical perspective. Hirvi-Ijäs is the author of a doctoral thesis in art history titled “Den framställande gesten. Om konstverkets presentation i den moderna konstutställningen” (The Performative Gesture. On the presentation of artworks in the modern art exhibition, 2007).

The architectural critic Mimi Zeiger discussed the trend of spectacular buildings for modern art, and reflected on its political incentive and impact on the visitors’ experience of the museum. The last lecture was delivered by Kylie Message; under the heading of “Museums in the Twenty-First Century”, she discussed the modern museum from a post-colonial perspective.

Closing panel discussion

The symposium ended with a panel discussion with the participating speakers. On the topic of “Will the Modern Museums be Historic Soon?” Moderna Museet’s curator John-Peter Nilsson moderated a discussion that centred on the delicate task of the modern museums of simultaneously managing 20th century art history and being a forum for contemporary art.